I have finished working with the legislative committee on Inland Fisheries and Wildlife for this year. After the long winter sitting in one meeting after another it was a pleasure to walk out of the door this afternoon and know that my job now turns into a series of fishing and canoe trips for the foreseeable future; my reward for all of that indoor effort. Just in time, today was a beautiful warm sunny day with almost no wind. The amazing part is that there are very few black flies. They must be waiting for this weekend when I will be guiding bass fishermen on the ponds.
One thing about living in Maine is that we do not have much of a spring. We go from cold and mud to full blown summer in a few short weeks. We are now in the middle of that brief period. The leaves are starting to come out on the trees, the spring warbler migration is in full swing and the alewives are on their spawning run. We are still not enjoying summer temperatures; in fact it was cold and drizzling this morning when I got up.
“To change is difficult. Not to change is fatal.” Anonymous Lynnelle Bianco from Bold Vision Consulting wrote a post on change over at MaineToday.com which started me thinking about the future of conservation education. I attended hearing last week where a proposal to encourage hunter safety to change its methods of delivery was presented. The folks that oversee the program and many instructors stood up and said that they saw no need to change and certainly not in any hurry. After all the hunter safety record over the last forty or so years is a great success story.
